Krasker demonstrates questionable inventions he has created in his risible low-tech basement laboratory. They include an "I'm not dead yet" alarm that can be activated from inside a casket and a preposterous-looking "radio" that may or may not be able to communicate with the dead. These devices will turn out to be critical to plot development.

thus proving Teslas superiority. He had already built said device but only received prank calls from ghosts who wouldn't tell him shait about the afterlife (which Tesla didn't believe in anyways yet didn't stop him from sending wave after wave of super-electric death rays into via said device)

You know the true horror of having a phone line to the caskets in the cemetery?

DEAD PEOPLE HAVE ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD AND NOTHING TO DO.

You know those "needy" friends that have to call you every 5 minutes to decide which color shirt to wear? Well now you can have millions of tedious boring idiots with nothing of worth to do all calling your house every minute of every hour of every day.

DEEP HURTING!

On the other hand there are a few FARK posters (living and dead) which would still be pretty kickass if they had a PC in their coffin, image editing software, and all eternity to post. So it wouldn't be all bad except for the undead equivalent of crank callers.

// Woman: "Policeman, I picked up the phone and heard heavy breathing. The pervert went on for hours and hours. The problem is that he is so BORING. Sheesh, at least drop a shallow compliment now and then or chat about trivial news. I need this casket-caller's number blocked. It was worse than a prolonged conversation with my Aunt about her bunions."

What the article total misses out on is the craze about the "fourth dimension", basically the idea that the afterlife is another spatial dimension (or at least that ghosts can hang out there). Despite the fact Edison was a smart sciency dude, he may well have believed this was possible. The idea of a pseudo-physical world overlapping with our own was generally consistent with the public perception of scientific consensus